Monday, July 07, 2008

* i was just well enough to go on the big girls ride, so we met at the esplanade and headed up the springwater corridor trail to the sellwood bridge. i've never been on this side of the springwater so it was a neat & easy exploration. we even heard bagpipes practicing as we passed oaks park!

* sven & i attended avenue q. a lot of people walked out on it. i don't mind shock value but i don't like mean humour, and if you're going to do shock, then you shouldn't have such a freaking mundane storyline (boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl again). the best part of the night was afterwards, watching drunk teens get naked in keller fountain. "have a nice night!," one of them called out to us when they finally left. then we stopped by voodoo too for the first time. i would have never found it if sven hadn't been with me.

* one day i found strawberries at my door! melanie left them for me. thanks, melanie!

* i got to go on my belated solstice walk on powell butte: i like to go up there on solstices & equinoxes to see how it changes seasonally. the grass is so tall! i went to my favorite place, which has the perfect climbing tree. but i was also disappointed with how much trash is there and how the plaques on the compass rose are being destroyed.

* on the day that was so hot i survived mostly by driving to different events in trixie's air conditioning: visited romaine at fat straw, went to the fat fancy sale, and ended up at the multnomah county bike fair, which is presumably more interesting if you know someone there.

* new neighbors moved in across the street. they speak english, so now i don't know if i'll take russian in the fall, like i had been planning. everyone else across the street is or has been russian.

* we celebrated todd's birthday by taking him out to brunch at the matchbox lounge (tasty & easy to get a table out, but did you know pokpok is closed on sundays?), then to baskin robbins (since he turned 31) and then for a long talk at creston park.

* yay, a lightning storm!

week two:

* despite my neglect, the first raspberries showed up this week. perfect timing, too, as it meant i could make raspberry ice cream for 4th of july.

* michaelmas & i celebrated my 5th (!) portlandiversary, where we saw kristen & todd at the hawthorne burgerville. also i got to watch the hawthorne bridge rise for the first time.

* i went for a 10-mile bike ride and watched another lightning storm from the sheep bench on the springwater corridor trail. when headed for home i had lightning flashing behind me and fireworks exploding before me.

* at midnight jul03/04, earth was at aphelion, its furthest distance from the sun. (94,513,144 miles, or 3.4% farther from the sun than at perihelion in january)

* on the 4th of july, michaelmas, kristen & todd came over to watch 1776, which is a tradition for michaelmas. then we ate delicious veggie riblets, fantastic corn, sausages w/ sauteed veggies, that raspberry ice cream and sven's infamous popovers. when we went to the waterfront to watch the fireworks, ash & firework detritus rained from the skies, leaving char & paper (and likely heavy metals) in hair, skin, eyes & clothes. i'd rather have been on the bridge, but the fire marshal closed it this year for some reason, but i don't think it could have been as bad as it was on the water.

[toby & gregory celebrate independence day]

* when we painted the house they took the weatherstripping out, so i lettered parts of margie piercy's poem "housekeeping" on the inside of the frame so it will be hidden when we replace the weatherstripping. it was a poem dayna sent when we bought the house.

["It is the burrow of a sandworm..."]

* i had to trim the rosemary bush so the thyme would have some room, so i left free rosemary out in the yard in a glass vase. i wasn't sure it wold go because we don't really have a pedestrain neighborhood and only one other person in the neighborhood ever leaves stuff out for free. but i was delighted when i came back & it was gone! i was less happy when they also littered the free signs on our lawn and took the glass vase (which i had asked them not to do). this certainly isn't a considerate neighborhood. next time i'll have to leave it in a big can or something i was going to recycle, anyway.

* today i biked to the lents farmer's market. they still don't have many vendors, but i came away with sugar snap peas, tamales, rainier cherries, flowers, cilantro & garlic scapes. i also bought a chili cheese dog & a drink at the coffee cart and talked with the people at the shady table! thought the morning seemed like it might rain, by the time i left it was a beautiful bike ride there and back. i love biking with a huge bouquet in one of my baskets!